Fearing losing to Indonesia, the Chinese team made a surprising decision.

Chinese media reported that the country's Football Association decided to charter private planes to save travel time for players. The CFA was concerned that the Chinese team would be too tired to travel on commercial flights from Sydney to Beijing.

" The Chinese team departed at 3 p.m. Australian time and arrived in Beijing at midnight. The flight lasted 10 hours and the team used a chartered plane to avoid fatigue, thereby saving time before the important match with the Indonesian team ," QQ news agency said.

The Chinese team took a private plane home.

On the other side of the front line, with his "willingness to spend", Mr. Erick Thohir - President of the Indonesian Football Federation (PSSI) also rented a private plane to fly directly from Bahrain to China. Even the Indonesian team has arrived in the mainland and started to practice recovery.

The situations of Indonesia and China are in contrast. The Chinese team went through a bad streak of matches when they lost all three of their first matches in the third qualifying round for the 2026 World Cup in Asia. In the away match against Australia, coach Branko Ivankovic and his team continued to lose with a score of 1-3. They ranked last in their group.

Meanwhile, Indonesia continued to experience their third draw in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers. The team from the archipelago played strongly away from home. They lost in the 15th minute thanks to a great goal from Marhoon. But Oratmangoen and Rafael Struick scored consecutive goals to help the Indonesian team take the lead.

The drama unfolded in the second half's injury time. Initially, the referees announced that the injury time would be 6 minutes. But when Bahrain was awarded a corner kick leading to the goal, it was already the 8th minute of injury time. When the home team scored, the clock had already entered the 9th minute of injury time. Disagreeing with referee Ahmed Al Kaf, the Indonesian players surrounded the referee and expressed their anger.

However, the Indonesian team still left an impression on Southeast Asian fans. With 3 points after 3 draws, coach Shin Tae-yong and his team temporarily ranked 5th but only 1 point behind the teams above. In this group, only Japan won with 9 full points after 3 matches.

Mai Phuong

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/so-thua-indonesia-tuyen-trung-quoc-ra-quyet-dinh-bat-ngo-ar901425.html